


Luminous

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, this is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 12:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7685047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanda and Natasha need to be happy, okay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Luminous

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly rewritten on Sep. 24, 2016, because a lot of the original sucked. Probably a lot of this still sucks.

She leans over, sliding the topcoat over Wanda’s last fingernail, her right pinky. With her own fingernail, she scrapes the excess polish away from the edge, pushing the cuticle back for a clean, professional look. The Black Widow is nothing if not precise.

 

“There you go,” she says, capping the bottle and waving a hand in front of her face as if that’ll make the fumes go away. Wanda pulls her hand up to her face and grins. Her fingernails are glossy, perfect black with a tiny red tip, like she’d imagine the French Manicure of the devil to look. “They’re beautiful,” she says, smiling and waving her fingers in the air to dry them. Red sparks fly up, puffing Wanda’s hair around. “Whoops,” she grins, feigning being upset-ness. She plucks the bottle from Natasha’s hand with her magic playfully, dangling it in the air just out of Nat’s reach. 

Laughing, Natasha reaches up and snatches it back down. Wanda tries to mentally pull it back towards herself, only to find Natasha’s clenched fist is too strong.

 

Grinning, they collapse back onto the cushions around them. “The great Scarlet Witch has been conquered by nail lacquer,” snorts Nat, placing the bottle back into her purse and shifting on the many pillows. She sits up, leans over Wanda’s face, and kisses her gently on the forehead. Wanda giggles and tucks herself up in a blanket as Natasha covers her hair in gentle kisses. “That feels nice,” she murmurs, sighing.

Natasha grins with her face pressed on top of Wanda’s head. Her hair is perfumed; some sort of fruity shampoo smell. Pomegranate? Raspberry? Whatever it is, it smells wonderful.  _ Even so... _

 

“You know, all this hair isn’t really practical for fighting,” she remarks, taking Wanda’s hair in her hands and playing with it. Wanda shivers for a moment, surprised. Nat drops her hair. “Is it alright if I braid it?” she asks.

“That would be lovely,” replies Wanda, sitting up and pushing her hair behind her shoulders. She pulls two ponytail holders from her wrist and hands them to Natasha, who takes them and wraps them around her own.

“Let me put in a movie first,” Natasha says. “What do you want to watch?”

“Mulan,” says Wanda instantly. It’s by far her favorite Disney movie, even if the Huns (who she and many Sokovians are descended from) are painted black-and-white as villains. After all, they were trying to invade and conquer.

“A girl after my own heart,” Natasha sighs, taking the DVD off the shelf and placing it into the high-tech movie projector. “All the other princess ones are so sexist.”

“True,” agrees Wanda, continuing to blow on her nail polish and wave her hands around the room. Her hands are lost in sweater paws, but her nails poke out the edge. Natasha finds it much, much cuter than she could ever articulate. “After all, who needs a man to come save them?”

“Steve Rogers?”

“Fair point.”

 

The movie begins and Natasha deftly continues tucking Wanda’s hair into two twin plaits, enjoying the feeling of her fingers buried in the strands. Wanda’s brown hair is gorgeous and the perfume of it keeps wafting up into Natasha’s face, making her smile. She sighs contentedly and settles further into the blanket, wrapping her legs around Wanda’s waist. 

Wanda relaxes into Nat’s lap and sighs happily, feeling contented and oddly free. Her head falls back onto Natasha’s shoulder and Natasha kisses the top of it, smiling. She finishes the braids, ties them, and places them back over Wanda’s shoulders. Wanda smiles and runs her hands over her braids with her eyes closed. “They’re wonderful,” she murmurs, her neck arched backward with her head still resting on Natasha’s shoulder.

 

Nat grins, her face crinkling up. “You didn’t even look,” she laughs.

Wanda opens her eyes. “They’re wonderful,” she says again, sparkles in her eyes.

She scoots sideways so she can wrap herself around Natasha. Nat lies backward onto the cushions and lets Wanda caress her, exhaling and letting stress and worry and the ever-present tension in her muscles escape, escape.

The movie’s colors flash across the projector screen and the two entangled superhero girlfriends watch Mulan prepare to kick ass and save China, set to a beautiful music score.

“Disney really is magical, isn’t it?” asks Wanda, when they’re about halfway through the film. “I mean, when it’s not being sexist and problematic.”

Natasha nods. “It’s really another world.”

Wanda smiles. “And sometimes those are in short supply.”

 

They finish the movie as they started it -- curled up, with fingers interlaced. As the credits roll, though, Wanda scoots slightly away from Nat, suddenly seeming sad.

“What is it?” asks Natasha.

“Nothing,” says Wanda. It’s clearly not nothing, though, and Natasha grows concerned. 

“No, really,” says Wanda, seeing the expression on Natasha’s face. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” sighs Nat, placing a hand gently on Wanda’s shoulder. “You know you can tell me anything.”

 

There’s a pause as Wanda deliberates whether or not to speak of what’s weighing on her mind.

 

“It’s just that Sokovia’s gone,” she finally confesses. “It’s complicated. Mulan would do anything for her home. I’d have done anything to protect Sokovia and all its people. I  _ did _ do anything to protect Sokovia and its people. Pietro even gave his life. And I kept fighting. I could see myself in Mulan. But the thing was…” Wanda struggles with the English.

“It’s not a perfect analogy,” says Natasha, immediately understanding. “Because the people destroying Sokovia were the Avengers as much as Ultron.”

  
“Exactly,” says Wanda. “I couldn’t know if I was a Hun or a Mulan. I was both, am both.”

Her face seems to crumple a bit. “The English was gone for a moment. I’m sorry.”

“There is absolutely nothing to be sorry about,” Nat comforts, reaching over and wrapping Wanda in a hug. Wanda shudders and smooshes her face into Natasha’s shoulder, Pietro’s face and her parents’ faces strong in her mind. Other images flash through her head; the dead girl in the aftermath of the Sokovian battle. Her home rising into the air and exploding into rock and dust and nothing. The bomb in her living room, STARK written crisply, efficiently, along the side. And she’d seen her parents’ bodies in the living room there, reaching for each other, before Pietro had covered her eyes.

 

Nat strokes Wanda’s hair, fingering the braids. “For the record,” she finally says, “I think you’re a Mulan. You’re the strongest fighter I know.”

“Thank you,” replies Wanda. She sniffs and continues resting against Natasha, but she seems unconvinced.

“Truly,” says Nat. “Look at you. You’re incredible.”

There’s another pause. Wanda shifts.

“It’s hard,” she finally whispers, her face pressed against Nat’s jacket. “It’s hard to be loved when you think you should be hated.”

Anger flashes in Natasha. The sentence triggers something; memories of herself in the Red Room. She digs her fingers into the pillows around her and forces the memories back until she’s calm enough to speak.

“I know the feeling,” she murmurs, both to herself and her girlfriend. “After the Red Room… When I got out, when I escaped, people were willing to give me a second chance. And I didn’t know how to deal with that. I’m  _ still _ not sure I know, even now.”

“Exactly,” says Wanda, half in wonder. “That’s exactly how I felt. Like I didn’t deserve redemption.”

“Well, you do,” says Natasha firmly. “You should never be hated. Not now and not ever.”

Wanda smiles faintly. Her eyes shine with unshed tears; they’re bright and large and sad, deeply sad, but still so brilliant.

“You are…” Natasha searches for the word and finally finds it. It’s embedded in Wanda’s magic, in the glow in her eyes. “luminous.”

“Luminous,” echoes Wanda. She doesn’t know what it means, but when Natasha says it, it sounds like stars and fire.

Nat shifts and tucks Wanda into her, spoon-like. “My little witch,” she says, half-rocking her back and forth. “You know I love you.”

Wanda smiles and cries and crumples. “I love you too, Natasha,” she replies, suddenly sleepy in Natasha’s arms. The warmth is surrounding her, the hour is late, and she’s falling ever-faster into close, comforting blackness. She’s dimly aware of Natasha laying her down on the blankets and pillows and pulling them up to her chin, and then everything is washed away to the behind-eyelids grey of half-asleep twilight.

  
As for Natasha, she’s still wide awake. She thinks back years and can’t remember being loved as much as this. She tucks herself around Wanda, tangling her legs with hers. Her hands pull the blanket up further to Wanda’s chin.

 

Then she moves to get up, thinking she should let Wanda rest. Natasha is violent in her sleep, dying in her dreams, and the last thing she wants to do is hurt her girlfriend. As she moves to step away from where Wanda is curled on the pillows, though, Wanda shifts, breaking through layers of almost-sleep.

“Come back,” she says, tiredly.

“I can’t,” says Natasha. “You don’t want to sleep next to me. I kick a lot, like I’m even fighting my bed.”

“I don’t care,” says Wanda. “I just want you.”

 

And that’s when Natasha Romanoff, ex-Soviet spy, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, leading Avenger, and Black Widow herself, cracks.

She slides herself back into the covers, covers Wanda’s hair in kisses, and wraps her arms around Wanda’s waist, inhaling the scent of her hair and finally relaxing.

 

They fall asleep like that, Natasha curled around Wanda in the blankets. Wanda dreams of home and the future, and for the first time, Natasha’s there in one of her dreams.


End file.
